TORONTO : The unknown city. by Howard Alker & Sarah B. Heed

But not before the park was created. Lush and well- planned, the garden sits atop a thin crust of pavement over a parking garage, and features a cooling waterfall fountain as well as a public art installation that somewhat resembles a wall-mounted patchwork quilt. Each "patch" is made of a different type of building material, a tribute to the various construction trades. Meanwhile, the unintentionally PoMo concrete skeleton of the never-finished office tower sulks across the street, vacant window wells staring out at the business district. ISLAND HOPPING Some see it as an encouraging sign of a healthy ecosystem, while others view it as just plain yucky. It doesn't much matter which way you look at it, because the annual Toronto Island toad invasion will go on regardless. The American toad (Bufoamericanus) is a bumpy-skinned little amphibian that's very much at home in these parts. Every spring, after mating, the females each lay thousands of eggs. When they hatch and metamorphose later in the summer, thousands and thousands of thumbnail-sized baby toads set out to migrate from the ponds that have been their homes to the natural areas Ward's Island resident Liz Amer even has a toad palace in her garden, with spirals of tiny staircases which the gentle where they will live as adults mainly on land. Harmless, except to insects, the toads are generally treated with affection by the Islanders. Former City Councillor and creatures will sometimes climb for a little sunshine. You can't really point to a single dining experience and say definitively, "That's Toronto!" We don't have an equivalent to Montreal smoked meat, Buffalo wings, or New York cheesecake. Instead, Toronto has inherited the plain home cooking of its early British and Irish settlers, then gradually amplified the repertoire by absorbing the national cuisines of successive waves of immigrants especially the Italians and the Chinese. Thus dim sum is characteristically Torontonian, as are pizza, pasta, tandoori chicken, take maki, and the all-day breakfast. Also, although we do have a roster of fine chefs, Toronto is not an excellent dining city because of its haute cuisine, but because of its enormous variety. Pick a food: you can probably get it here. So, whereas many other guides list the fanciest and the best, we thought it would be more fun to concentrate on the overlooked and the unusual, along with a few fairly well known places that we just couldn't stand to leave out. As a result, with a few exceptions, the establishments in this section tend to fall into the "under $20" price range. (Many of them aren't really unknown, either, since any restaurant that's truly secret doesn't stay in business very long.) Salad in the sky The Fairmont Royal York Hotel (100 Front St. W., 416-368-2511, fairmont.com) gives new meaning to the phrase "a bed of lettuce." A full 18 stories above the traffic snarl at Front and University, the hotel's apprentice chefs tend an edible garden laid out in custom-designed four poster beds. Seems executive chef John Cordeaux is also an avid gardener. He insists on an organic-only regime for his herbs, fruits, and vegetables, which end up seasoning Royal York diners' plates. Along with traditional culinary herbs, the garden includes some of the edible flowers that are still all the rage with foodies, plus pears, cherries, and plums. The Ground Rules Back in 2000, Toronto diners started to wonder about the conditions of this city's kitchens a train of thought that was especially spurred on by Robert Cribb's "Dirty Dining" series in the Toronto Star. In response, the City of Toronto's Public Health Department created a program that forces restaurateurs to publicize the results of their most recent inspection. In fact, the Province of Ontario requires that all food outlets (not just restaurants but, for instance, bakeries and delis) must be inspected annually. If they're designated "High Risk," they get three inspections a year. Before you leap to conclusions, this designation would apply to any restaurant with a wide range of choices on the menu, or to any food facility in a hospital or a day-care centre. "Medium Risk spots (like fast food outlets) get two inspections annually. "Low Risk" ones (a corner store that serves sandwiches) get just one visit per year. As of January 8, 2001, all food service facilities must post the results of their most recent inspection: either a green card (for a pass) or a yellow one la conditional pass, which requires relatively modest changes to meet "green" standards). If they get a red card, the restaurant must close until the problems are fixed. When Public Health authorities suspect an establishment may not be likely to post their card, they'll monitor the place to make sure the sign goes up. If you can't spot the rating card, or if you want more information, you have the right to request to see the results of the most recent inspection, and every restaurant is required to have a copy on the premises. If you're curious about a particular establishment, you can also check for its inspection results on the City's DineSafe website. If you suspect all is not as it should be in a particular place, you can call the City's Food Service Hotline. There are about 18,000 "food premises" in Toronto, requiring about 33,000 inspections per year. The good news is that less than 1% of Toronto restaurants receive the red rating annually. (Furthermore, the City offers safe food handling courses, and is hoping to make it mandatory for all restaurant owners to become certified, just as Toronto bar servers must undergo training to deal with customers they think should be "cut off" for the night.) Things We Lack Unlike many urbanites, Torontonians crave a coffee and a pastry first thing in the morning. Maybe that's why it's really hard to find a place to go after a movie or a play to have a coffee and an excellent éclair or a superb sachertorte. The bakery selection at the coffee chains is often limited to hardy stuff: muffins, brownies, coffee cakes. Those that do carry more elegant fare seldom sell it fast enough to keep it fresh. And once there was a host of cheap and wonderful Hungarian restaurants in town, but now you can barely find two schnitzels to rub together (should you wish to do so, of course). We also lack a Tiki bar that's worthy of the name - certainly nothing that ranks with Montreal's vanished Kon-Tiki.